ORAL HISTORY: Sy Goldstein's Army days

Friday

May 30, 2014 at 12:01 AM

The Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 may have been the biggest invasion force in history, but it wasn't the first American landing force to invade enemy territory in World War II. Earlier, in 1942, and again in 1943 and 1944, the United States, along with their British allies, had successfully landed amphibious fighting forces in North Africa, Sicily, and mainland Italy before the beaches of France were invaded. At each one, Dartmouth native Stanley Goldstein was there.

JASON PROTAMI

The Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 may have been the biggest invasion force in history, but it wasn't the first American landing force to invade enemy territory in World War II. Earlier, in 1942, and again in 1943 and 1944, the United States, along with their British allies, had successfully landed amphibious fighting forces in North Africa, Sicily, and mainland Italy before the beaches of France were invaded. At each one, Dartmouth native Stanley Goldstein was there.

Stanley, known as Sy to his friends, was an early U.S. Army inductee. "I must have been drafted," the now 97-year-old joked, "because I don't think I would have enlisted."

Already at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Goldstein remembers sitting on his foot locker listening to President Roosevelt's famous speech, telling America the horrible news of the "day that will live in infamy."

Soon after leaving boot camp, the young private found himself in the North African desert, fighting the Germans and Italians along with the rest of the Army's 36th Field Artillery Division. "We called them Long Toms," Goldstein said of his battalion's main weapon of war — the 155 mm field artillery gun.

Known as the M1 in army speak, it had a 20-foot barrel that could send 100-pound shells full of high explosives over 13 miles. It was America's prime field artillery piece during the Second World War. "Our job was to knock out the enemy's artillery," Goldstein said during a recent interview. "But of course, we got some back too,"

Though primarily a headquarters clerk, Goldstein also spent a lot of time as a forward observer. He frequently accompanyied his first lieutenant to an elevated forward observation post to track the company's artillery shells and relaying necessary adjustments back to the gun's commanders. "The first shell they sent out was called a smoker, and you could see where it landed... then you would radio in (the gun battery) with any corrections for the aim."

Although he never had to undertake any hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, Goldstein said he still carries the scars of war. "The nights were the worst," he remembered. "That's when the Germans used to shell, and we would have to sleep in our fox-holes. I have a lot of memories of long sleepless nights," he said of the stress of being under continuous bombardment by enemy artillery.

"None of our guns ever got hit; but one time we were getting shelled pretty bad, and one guy went off his rocker," he remembered. "They had to give him needles and take him away... Let me tell you, I consider myself very lucky —if you live through something like that, you have to be lucky."

The G.I.'s time was short in Africa. Soon after that campaign came to a successful conclusion, he and those Long Toms were on board a troop transport, crossing the Mediterranean Sea to assist in the invasion of Sicily, and after that, mainland Italy.

The Italian stories are basically same as the African invasion. "We were never part of the infantry landing force, because our guns were too big to get on shore until a beachhead was established. In Sicily, they got artillery support from the battleships," he recalled. "That's how close the German artillery was to the ocean."

In Italy, the Allies landed at Anzio, and once again the 36th Field Artillery had to wait for the infantry to secure enough territory to bring the big guns ashore. Weighing in at over nine tons, the field pieces sat on their own 10-wheeled trailers, pulled by tracked armored vehicles called prime-movers, which carried the gun's crew and ammunition as well.

Malaria struck Goldstein on the beach at Anzio, sending him to a very crowded hospital while the Allies advanced, and the Germans and Italians counter-attacked. "I remember one night in the hospital when it was getting shelled... the nurse came around and told everybody to put their helmets on and get on the floor."

Too sick to care, the young man ignored the nurse. "It didn't make a difference to me then what happened," the old man said, searching his memories. "It seems like a long time ago I was overseas." Corporal Goldstein made it back to active duty, but never went to France or Germany. He was soon rotated out of combat duty, and sent back to the States for the duration. "I got my orders to go home the same time as another guy... I had to drag that guy out of every bar we passed, from the front lines... to the airport."

After the war, the Dartmouth native decided to return to his hometown, though he had been living and working with an uncle in Boston before the war. "I got discharged from Fort Devens, hitchhiked to Boston, and called my uncle for a ride from South Station," he remembers. When the uncle picked him up, his first question was, "Are you going to come back to work with me?"

The home-sick civilian said no, he was moving back to Dartmouth. "I missed the country, being outdoors," he said. In 1945, Dartmouth was mostly country... dairy country in fact. The Goldstein family business operated for many years from their farm on what was then known as Hixbridge Road, but is called Faunce Corner Road today. Later, the family ran a popular garden center out of their barn, located where Lowe's is today.

A long-time real-estate developer and successful businessman, Stanley Goldstein may be best known around town as the man who gave the Schwartz Center the land on Old Westport Road to build a new school for children with special needs.

Nearly 70 years after his wartime experiences, Goldstein still believes there are some wars worth fighting — wars to stop madmen like Hitler from taking over the world. But to go to war over territory or money, he said, that just doesn't make sense.

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